Wii

Nintendo, Wii

New Super Mario Bros. [Wii – Beta]

monokoma
15-01-2010
12 Comments

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a side-scrolling platform developed by Nintendo EAD and released in November 2009. The game was announced at E3 2009, and from the early videos and screens, Kirby64 was able to notice various beta differences:

  • The propeller power-up was different from the final game.
  • At the Nintendo Press Conference they said at the end of every stage a result screen will pop-up and show you how many enemies you stomp and how many coins you collected, but this only appear in the coin battle and free-for-all.
  • The checkpoint flag was changed to bowser’s head at the final game and the background color of the flag was black. In the beta it had a skull.
  • A music note / melody can be seen in the HUD.  That note is not in there in the final game.
  • The blue arrow in the screen with the lava had changed its color in the final game (it’s red and the board is yellow).
  • The world 5-3 background looks different from the final game.
  • Some stages were removed or hevily changed in the final game.

In the screen with Mario in the pinguin-suit we can see an area that was originally going to be world 3-1, but it was later removed. The ice structure has a different design in the final version, with a more blue color and snow on top of the ice.

Some more info on the beta differences can be found at Mario Wiki:

In the E3 2009 demo, after players go through the boss door, they all fall from the top of the screen and into the boss room, as the initial Larry and Morton videos showed. This was just like in the original New Super Mario Bros., where the player also enters the Bowser Jr. battles the same way. In the final version, the players are already on the ground when the boss room loads up.

Kab-ombs, Mr. Blizzards, Stretches and Bowser Statues were meant to appear but they were cut out as soon as the game was released.

Also, LucaPM noticed a unused file in the NSMB Wii code, called “test_lift.arc”. As we can read at Rusted Logic, it is a graphic file, a stretched grey block.

Thanks to Kirby64 and LucaPM for the contributions!

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Leaked, Nintendo, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Wii

Explodemon [PS3/Wii/PC – Prototype]

monokoma
13-01-2010
2 Comments

Explodemon! is an upcoming 2.5D side scrolling platform game in development by Curve Studios for PlayStation Network, Microsoft Windows and WiiWare. The project is described as “what Treasure would create if they mixed Yoshi’s Island with Half-Life 2”, and is inspired by elements from games as diverse as Street Fighter II, Halo, Super Metroid and Bangai-O.

In the personal blog of Jonathan Biddle, Design Director at Curve Studios, we can read an interesting series of articles about the development of Explodemon!, with images and videos from its early prototypes.  From his blog Jonatahn also released the December 2005 Explodemon proto, that you can download from here. Huge props!

There were always new games concepts bouncing around at Blue, and Jamie had a few, one of which was Exploding Robot 12. Jamie’s concept went something along the lines of humanity’s last hope – a robot that couldn’t stop himself exploding – being sent out to destroy the alien menace that was threatening all of mankind. From what I remember, it wasn’t so much a platform game, as an action puzzler, where you had to navigate sections that you didn’t want to destroy, as well as blow up the enemy spacecraft and whatnot. I always liked the idea, and my recent explosion-based thoughts lead me to wonder if it would translate well to a platform game. I mentioned it to Jamie and he was up for me carrying the idea on. The early builds even had the codename ‘R12’.

For more info on the Explodemondevelopment, check One Bit Beyond!

Videos:

For comparison, here’s the trailer from the final game:

 

Nintendo, Wii

Wizard [Wii – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
19-12-2009
4 Comments

Wizard was a RPG in development for the Wii, which was started at SuperVillain Studios (Crash of the Titans, Order Up!) in 2007. The story revolved around heroes who were trying to pursue a mysterious little girl trapped in the mist ravines. Sadly Wizard was cancelled due to a lack of funding in early 2009, but some screens and videos are archived in the gallery below, to preserve its existence.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii

CCTV [DS/Wii – Unreleased]

monokoma
09-11-2009
4 Comments

CCTV is a cancelled adventure game that was in development at Nikitova Games, designed by Jon Hare, former member of Sensible Software. The concept of the game is that players work as a security operator in charge of using cameras to find criminals and resolve various problems. While you look at different camera feeds, you can see different action going and when you notice that something strange it’s happening, you can stop / rewinds the video to find more clues. As we can read in the official description of the project:

In this game you play the role of a security guard using CCTV and cop cars to catch petty criminals and most wanted criminals alike as you travel the world finding suspects and nailing them in this fast paced game of observation, identification & interrogation. Starting as a lowly shopping mall guard, the player can rise to International head of security […]

The game has been designed specifically for the Nintendo Wii & DS to play as either a single player, as two players co-operatively or as 2 players competitively against each other.

As Jon told in his Cubed3 interview, the game is currently suspended and it’s unknown if it will ever be resurrected. Sadly they did not find any publisher interested in the project:

CCTV’s a good example of how it’s very hard to sell an original game. We did show CCTV to a lot of companies, and some companies expressed interest, but there overall response was ‘that’s interesting, I like the idea of that, but…it’s too original

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

Guitar Hero 3 [Beta]

monokoma
01-11-2009
5 Comments

Guitar Hero 3 was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision and RedOctane. It is the third main installment in the Guitar Hero series, and the fourth title overall. The game was released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 in October 2007. [Info from Wikipedia]

Dirty Harry noticed that in early videos of the game there are some notable differences:

  • In the final, there is no 1x combo. When no combo is earned the amp is blank, only showing 2x, 3x, and 4x combos.
  • All of the combos are orange. In the final the 2x is orange, the 3x is green and the 4x is pink.
  • The frets at the bottom look more like they do in Guitar Hero II in the beta.
  • The ‘Star Power Ready’ message is much more bland and less exciting than in the final.
  • There is no lightning effect when you get star power.

Thanks to Dirty Harry and Jason for the contribution!

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